Tuesday, April 30, 2013

"American Labor Law Cramped My Acting Career"

The term Taft-Hartley,
a federal act passed in 1947 restricting – or regulating depending on your
point of view – the power of labor unions, has a special meaning in the
entertainment industry.Specifically for
film and television actors, an actor not in the union who becomes “a principal
performer” (says a line) is immediately eligible to join the “Screen Actors
Guild” and is covered under the SAG contract with the production company for 30
days, after which he or she must join SAG or cease working on any union
production.

So much for the educational portion of the program.The rest is my standard recipe of biography
and foolishness, seasoned with my patented misplaced sense of personal
entitlement.

Enjoy.

In 1983, or ’84 – I am not a great researcher; I explore the
web for a while, my eyes start to water, and then I give up – I was asked to
appear on an episode of the cult favorite though low rated half-hour comedy Buffalo Bill (starring Dabney Coleman,
and created by the team of Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, whom I had met years
earlier when I wrote scripts for The Tony
Randall Show which Tom and Jay were in charge of.)

(A side-note about what show business does to people:When I failed to recognize Tom upon running
into him a couple of years after he had retired from the television business, his
response to my observation that he looked different was, “That’s because I have
stopped seething.”)

I was contacted – by either Tom or Jay or perhaps it was the
show’s casting director – and asked if I was interested in playing the role of “Crazy
Eddy” Felsik, “The Human Salmon”, thus monikered because he had gone over
Niagara Falls in a barrel (which was locally significant because Buffalo Bill, a sitcom about an acerbic
talk show host, was set proximal to Niagara Falls, in Buffalo, New York.)

(By the way, the Canadian Falls are indisputably more
breathtaking their American counterparts.FYI, in case you only have
time to see one of them.)

The role would involve a couple of hours’ filming and the
delivery of a single line.I immediately
said yes.The production then “Taft-Hartleyed”
me (as I was not a SAG member), and
off we went.(I received the minimum
“scale” for my performance; it seemed wrong to negotiate with friends.Plus,I mean, you know, who am I kidding?)

When I arrived, I went straight to “make-up”, after which, stripping
down to my underwear, I was put into a wetsuit and hoisted into a barrel.(The wetsuit included the connected rubber hood
that claps tightly around your ears and makes it sound like you’re holding a
seashell to each of them, and hearing “stereo ocean.”)The barrel was then raised onto a mobile wooden
platform, where, at the appropriate moment, I was rolled into the scene in
which I would perform.

The episode’s plotline was that Buffalo Bill was in a ratings slump, and they needed a stunt to
pull them out of the doldrums – hence, “Crazy Eddy’s” reprising going over
Niagara Falls in a barrel.My arrival
into the scene was greeted by an extended, over-the-top rant by host “Buffalo
Bill” Bittinger, who was irate, because, by associating with “Crazy Eddy”, the
show was selling itself out for ratings.At the end of his tirade, a still-fuming Bittinger exits wherever they are,
ferociously slamming the door.After
which I deliver my line, which was,

“And I thought I was crazy.”

It’s hot wearing a wetsuit.And it’s even hotter, bordering on “health-endangering ordeal” wearing a
wetsuit under blazing studio lights.But
that was my costume, and that was the situation that prevailed – me in a wetsuit,
standing in a barrel under blistering overhead lighting.

I could not have been happier.

Less happy, however, was the episode’s director – the
multi-hatted Tom Patchett.Firstly, I
was told not to make faces while other people are speaking.You’ve heard of over-acting.Well apparently there is over-reacting as well.And I was doing it.I was instructed to calm down my face.

(During the third or fourth “take” (of, I believe, a total
of six), I noticed, John Fiedler, a respected and oft-used character actor,
standing “statue still” through the entire proceedings.At first glance, he did not seem to be doing
anything.But, in fact, he was doing the
“consummate professional’s” version of listening, in contrast to myself, who
was LISTENING!!!!!!!! I had no idea how behaving Fiedler’s way got
you any attention.But I belatedly
realized that that wasn’t the point.

Then, there was the question of my “line reading”, the
inadequacy of which led to numerous “retakes.”I had rehearsed my line at home, but it was
clear that the director was unhappy, his eyes reflecting the transparent regret
that they had not secured a legitimate actor.I tried several variations on my reading, adjusting my intensity, as the
line, “And I thought I was crazy” has its own prerequisite
rhythm.

It was during the multiple re-shoots that I determined that I
wasn’t the problem.

It was the line that
was wrong.

Crazy people don’t
think they’re crazy; other people
think they’re crazy.Ipso and facto, the line, “And I thought
I was crazy” didn’t make sense.What the line following the bizarre behavior
of another person should have been
was,

Finally, the scene was “in the can”, and they said “Moving
on!”, which for the actors meant to the next scene, and for me meant home.Weeks later, I excitedly watched myself on
television. My dreams of “Eddy’s” possible
return, however, were rapidly dashed when it was revealed in the following week’s
episode that “Crazy Eddy” Felsik had indeed challenged Niagara Falls in a
barrel, but that Niagara Falls had won.

“The Human Salmon” had floated upstream.

(Or, more likely, downstream, the rushing waters carrying
his shattered wetsuit-clad body out to sea.)

The connection of this tale to the Taft-Hartley Law?After a “principal performer” says one line,
“…he or she must join SAG or cease
working in any other production.”

That’s how it works – you get one “free one”, and that’s
it.As a result, because of a single
line I delivered in a sweltering wetsuit in 1983 (or ’84), I could receive no
further waivers for future appearances.

Ever.

They wanted me to do a line on (now Senator) Al Franken’s Lateline (1999) fifteen (or sixteen)
years later – and I couldn’t do it.I
had been “Taft-Hartleyed” for Buffalo
Bill, and that, for my entire lifetime, was that.My alternative, of course, was to join the
union.But it seemed impractical to do
so for one line every decade and a half.And who knew if that regularity would last?Nobody stays hot forever.

I had already appeared in Cannibal Girls (1973), but that was in Canada, where the long arm
of Taft-Hartley felicitously does not reach.For you Americans, however, if you didn’t see me on Buffalo Bill, you missed my entire acting career.You didn’t miss much.I was a pretty mediocre “Crazy Eddy.”